One of my favorite history books is Nicholas and Alexandra because it reads like a novel and is very accessible and informative (even if personally I think it veers a little into worshipping the Tsar a bit).

Any recs for similar books? Any subject or time period is fine, I'm just better with easily digestible history books without feeling like I'm studying.

Hello,

I'm interested in finding books about Black people in Lisbon Portugal from 1400-1755 and also books on the Moorish rule of Lisbon until it's end.

Thanks in advance!

• Women in the Medieval Court: Consorts and Concubines by Rebecca Holdorph
• Iran Under the Safavids by Roger Savory
• The Creation of the French Royal Mistress: From Agnès Sorel to Madame Du Barry by Tracy and Christine Adams

I am a cat person - I just ment I can imagine :)

Making my way through Troy Senik’s new bio of Grover Cleveland, A Man of Iron, and enjoying it so far. More of a survey course than an in depth reading of his life, but I’m not sure there’s enough here for more than Senik devotes, which is plenty. A fine overview of what by most all accounts seems to be an extremely decent man in an extremely indecent era.

This will likely be the end of my bio jag, and of the three I’ve read in succession I would probably place Senik’s third behind Berg’s Lindbergh and Chernow’s Titan, which might be the best character study of a single person I’ve ever read.

Yep, my bad. My brain left out the union part.

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There are dozens of us!

I'm just happy to have stumbled across someplace to banter about antiquity with other like-minded history enthusiasts.

I’d like to recommend two books by Ben Macintyre: A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal and The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War. In a Spy Among Friends, Macintyre sketches MI5 agent Kim Philby’s treasonous career as a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring. MacIntyre argues that Philby’s treason was personal not just political because it affected his best friend as well as his country. In the Spy and the Traitor, Macintyre outlines KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky’s career as a double agent clandestinely feeding secrets to MI6. Both books are outstanding and offer an interesting look at the Cold War.

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Very professional well written ,I can tell she is going to battle the two views of Hoover as a devil and a God and try to balance it out ,I am fascinated how this balancing act will work..When I finish I will give my opinion how she does.

I heard about G-Man. Apparently, Gage has been working on it for about a decade. How is it so far?

G-Man :J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

Morgenthau:Power,Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty by Andrew Meier

Russia:Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921 by Anthony Beevor

Does anyone know how much railroad workers and teachers made a day in the 1840s?? I can’t find any info about it when I look it up

Apparently not a lot of takers on any interesting, and most assuredly not "funny," anecdotes regarding blizzards, harsh cold conditions, or etc. But the "take home" message is clear from accounts like Alive by Piers Paul Reid, or any of the many accounts of the Donner party in the High Sierras/Truckee Meadows: if you find yourself in a situation of extreme cold/ice/snow and a distance from civilization, someone in the group with good survival and orienteering skills is going to have to walk out, or the entire party will die. Just to keep it in mind. Survival against cold is rare beyond 96 hours without taking some steps toward warming, and protection from the elements.

Do you mean “ochre?” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochre

Okra is a vegetable

Woah I adored my father’s impressively intelligent cat. What negative opinion.

Maori have only been in New Zealand since 1400AD.

Last two history books of the year. They are those old fashioned massive hardbacks with loads of pictures, as I wanted a clean slate for the history books I got for Christmas. Only really mentioning them as they are my last history books of 2022 and I'm now just reading fiction till next year.

Uniforms and Decorations of World Wars I & II by John Batchelor (Illustrator), Bernard Fitzsimons (Editor)

>2.5/5. Charity shop find. Nothing wrong with it but overall just not for me. Read it very quickly as it is mostly pictures and captions.

>Rather old book, published in the 1970s. 170 pages, one of those big hardcover style books that don't seem to get made nowadays. Collection of artwork depicting the uniforms of soldiers from both the world wars. Surprisingly in-depth as it included many of the colonial troops and for WWI the various Balkan troops. For WWII it also had a section just for ties (which I skipped but it shows the level of detail). Additionally it has pictures of medals, decorations on aircraft, various insignia like all the SS division symbols plus some propaganda posters. There were some diagrams that displayed the unit organisation (division, batallion etc) in an easy to understand way and I did take photos of those so I could refer to them when reading other books. The artwork is decent but dated and the photos, while not that high in quality, are good enough to easily see.

>While it is in-depth and I do like military history, I personally am not that into learning about every single uniform or medal so I didn't get that much out of the book I'll remember but that is on me. If you are into that level of detail this book might be worth a read if you can find a very cheap copy (although there are probably newer easier to find books on the topic with higher quality images considering this book is nearly 50 years old)

Great Battles of World War 1 by Anthony Livesey

>3/5

>Writing was ok, not good but got the point across. Good quality maps and photos despite the age of the book. Decent mix of areas and battles, not just the Western Front. Some subsections with information about specific things like artillery, equipment or short biographies of the generals. But the main content is VERY focused on the operational side of things, very little on the experience of ordinary soldiers or the broader political context.

>Overall, only read on the small chance you see a cheap charity shop copy, not worth specifically seeking out

I got a lot of the ones I asked relatives for (used copies) so the ones I am most interested for -

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914-1918 by G.J Meyer

The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922 by Michael Llewellyn Smith

Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War by Nicholas Lambert

The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism by Anthony Read

Clearly Indo-Europeans don't count as indigenous, even if they have been around for at least 5000 years.

Not to mention that the current inhabitants of Africa did some large scale displacing and colonizing as well in recent history. The Bantu expansion (1000 BCE- 1 CE, iron age culture) is considered far more recent than the Indo-Europeanization of Europe (3000 BCE- 2350 BCE, late neolithic and copper age culture). If indigenousness is a race, Europe is likely to win from Africa.

You see this kind of thinking a lot where people of the modern era have a rough understanding of warfare and lock onto a concept. Example, people who think it would be smart to carry a cap and ball revolver plus multiple preloaded cylinders so you could reload faster like a guy with clips!

Or those who argued that longbows had faster Rate of Fire therefore would have been the superior weapon choice in the 1700s

No, it wasn't.

Automatic weapons were coming on line at pretty much the same time armies were going with fully rifles barrel breach loaders.

The Gatling gun is only not a machinegun by virtue of whacky legal definitions, and was around when most militaries had just upgraded their muzzle loaders. WW 1 was the era of the belt fed machinegun. Take a crew served belt fed MG on a tripod firing 30-06 or 8mm Mauser and you can rain hell down on incoming troops at 2000 yards.

People talk about how the WW 2 German army with their bolt action rifles weren't really outgunned because individual rifle fire was secondary to the MG. That was true of the USA too just not quite to the same degree.

Even look at Afghanistan today. A dozen fighting men can be engaging the enemy with 5.56 weapons but once you bring that M240 into the fight shit changes in a big way